It is known, in the technical sector for the production and winding, in spool form, of pipes and the like, that said pipes are generally formed by means of extrusion of a plastic material, that the formed pipes are output from the extruder continuously and fed to a winding machine which grips, pulls and winds them in spool form onto a rotating reel, cutting them also to size when the programmed final length of the wound spool is reached.
In the case where pipes are produced in bar form, the extruded pipe is instead fed to a cutting and packaging machine.
It is also known that, in order to perform cutting to size of the wound pipe, the current technology envisages using devices for measuring the pipe fed to the spooling machine and passing through a predefined marker point.
Further measurement and cutting methods use synchronization means with meter-counting wheels or optical readers of marks present on the pipe, which are connected to and synchronized with cutting means mounted on operating machines.
In this connection it is also known that, for certain types of production or for the particular requirements of certain markets, the inside of the pipe must be protected and absolutely free from any type of debris and/or foreign matter which may become lodged inside the pipes during the normal storage, transportation and laying operations. U.S. Pat. No. 3,720,992 A illustrates an apparatus for cutting pipes and fitting caps onto the cut end according to the preamble of claim 10.
Further examples of the prior art are illustrated in WO 88/07494 A1, GB 1,388,393 A, WO 2008/107629 A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,399 A.